


Art

by Beth Harker (Beth_Harker)



Category: Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: Canon Era, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-26
Updated: 2013-12-26
Packaged: 2019-09-27 14:22:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17163593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beth_Harker/pseuds/Beth%20Harker
Summary: Jack shows Davey the city's secrets.





	Art

It started with a simple comment on an advertisement that they saw in the paper while standing outside the World Distribution Center, scanning the headlines to see what the day’s selling would be like. 

“They’ve upped the price of tickets to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. From twenty cents to twenty-five.” 

“So?” Jack asked, looking at Davey like maybe he’d said something stupid. Davey knew that he hadn’t. Jack liked paintings and that sort of thing. Davey hadn’t ever been to a museum, any more than Jack most likely had, but it was the sort of thing he thought his friend ought to be interested in. 

“Well, your work could be hanging up in there one day. I thought you might want to know about the pricing.” Davey teased. He bumped shoulders with Jack lightly, who gave him half a smile. That hadn’t really been it, either. It had been part of it, but not the whole thing. 

“That ain’t gonna happen,” Jack said. There was a certain amount of force behind his words. 

“It’s good enough,” Davey persisted, which in his mind was true. Besides, although he didn’t know much about art, he knew that in some ways selling it could be the same as selling a newspaper headline. The stories behind what Jack painted and sketched, Jack’s own stories, were bound to add interest. 

Jack shook his head dismissively, rubbing his neck. “C’mon Davey, these papes ain’t about to sell themselves,” he said, already walking away. Davey followed. 

“I get what you mean, though.” Davey said. Jack turned around, like he’d really expected Davey to have shut up about paintings and museums by now. He didn’t look angry, just bemused, surprised, sort of affectionate – the way he usually looked when Davey got it into his head that he wasn’t going to let a topic go. 

“Yeah?” Jack asked, waiting to see what Davey was on about. 

“Yeah. I mean, it’s no good to sell museum tickets at such a jacked up price. Sure, the artists need to be paid, but I bet a majority of it doesn’t even go to them, and if only people with money to burn get to see the pictures then what’s the point?” 

Jack grinned and slung an arm around Davey’s shoulder. “Today, after we get these things sold, I’ll show you something you’ll like,” he promised. 

——-

In all honesty, Davey was a little surprised to be spending a Sunday night with just Jack. Usually Katherine would be there as well, but she had an especially big article due tomorrow, and she’d exiled Jack until ten o’clock, when she’d promised to take a coffee break with him for precisely one hour, and not a minute more or less. Davey grinned when Jack described those circumstances to him, with a spirited but not entirely accurate impression of Katherine as she gave those orders. 

“She’s lucky I like her enough to put up with her when she goes all particular like that,” Jack said. 

“You’re lucky she likes you enough to put up with anything you do. You were just pretending to be her. Badly.” Davey countered. 

“You think you could do better?” 

Davey put up his hands in mock defeat, and Jack gestured for him to keep following him. After a while, Davey wasn’t thinking so much about Katherine. He was thinking about Jack, and where they were going to. It wasn’t any place nearby, that was for sure. 

Eventually they reached a line of buildings that looked like they’d been mostly torn down. The frames were there, creating about three stories depending on what angle you looked at them, but in parts of them curtains had been hung up to separate inside from out, and in other parts there wasn’t anything at all to protect the inhabitants from the elements or give them a scrap of privacy. 

There were inhabitants as well, about a dozen or so that Davey could see. A group of three of them were drinking some kind of dark liquid in the corner, and a fourth companion seemed to have already passed out from the effects of the drink, and lay spread eagle on the floor. Most of them, however, were painting by candle light as they laughed and talked. One of them, a girl, waved at Jack, who blew her a kiss that Davey knew he didn’t really mean. 

“You wanna go up and talk to them? See what they’re about?” Jack asked. 

“Do you know them?” 

“Sure. I know them. Come on.” 

 

—– 

It was two hours before they left. David’s mind was filled with the pictures he’d seen. A few of them had been beautiful landscapes, like the ones Jack liked to paint. One had been grotesque… a man with his face melting off, like it was candle wax. More pictures than David could count had been nothing more than strange mixes of colors that seemed to change shape every time he looked at them.

Jack hadn’t taken any of the dark liquid that the artists had offered him, but he was as cheerful as if he had. 

“How’d you like that museum, Davey?” Jack asked. 

“It was good. I mean… it was fascinating. Really fascinating. I’d never really looked at much abstract art before, just read about some of the more notable pieces. Do you ever paint with them?” 

Jack shrugged, “Used to, once in a while.”

“But you stopped. Why?” 

“Why do you always got to ask so many questions?” 

“Well, I’m your friend, aren’t I? I’m supposed to show interest in you.” 

“Yeah, yeah, so once a week we get interrogation hour with Davey Jacobs,” Jack said dismissively. Davey felt himself go sort of red. 

“But you didn’t tell me why you don’t paint with them anymore,” Davey persisted. 

“Don’t know. I like ‘em and all. I guess they just aren’t going anywhere. And I’d like to go somewhere. Gotta grow up sometime, ‘specially when you got a girl like Katherine who expects you to,” Jack said. He put his hands in his pockets as he walked. 

“Right,” Davey said. 

“So I’ll go somewhere. Just not to a museum or nothin’ highbrow like that.” 

“Somewhere better,” Davey said, and Jack turned to grin at him, glad that his friend had so much faith in him.


End file.
